refreshed, and with his half-dozen young children around him, was
unfeignedly happy, while Mrs. Grayson, hovering near her husband, who
had been practically lost to her for, lo! these many months, showed the
same joy and relief. She received the group with genuine warmth--her
husband's friends were hers--and bade them make the house their home
until the fight was over. Sylvia greeted them as old comrades, which, in
fact, they were. A room with tables for writing was already set apart
for their use.
The children were in holiday attire and thrilled by excitement; they
could not be suppressed. They were well aware what it was to be
President of the United States, and they failed to understand how any
one could vote against their father. "If he is beaten," thought Harley,
"it is not Mr. Grayson nor Mrs. Grayson who will feel the most
disappointment, but these little children."
Neither the candidate nor his wife alluded to the Presidential race,
seeming to enjoy this short respite after the long strain and before the
crucial trial yet to come. They talked of the small affairs of the home,
and she gave the news of their neighbors, as if they would make the most
of this brief hour; yet it was not wholly natural, there was in it a
note of suspense, and Harley knew that, despite the joy of reunion, the
shadow of the coming night was already over them. Jimmy Grayson must
feel that while he idled about his own home the ballots were falling in
the boxes off to the East and to the West by the hundred thousand, and
his own fate was being decided.
Harley and Sylvia, after the greetings and the casual talk, slipped away
from the others. There was a little glass-covered piazza at the back of
the house, and there they sat.
"Now you must tell me all that you have been doing since I left you."
"Nothing worth the telling. How could anything interesting happen after
you had gone? But I've been doing some fine thinking."
"Of what?"
"Of you!--always you! I've had to tear up the first page of many of my
despatches."
"Why?"
"Because I would address them to Sylvia instead of to the _Gazette_."
"John, I didn't know that you had imagination."
"It isn't imagination; I don't need imagination when I'm near you or
thinking of you, which is all the time."
"And you are going to marry a Western girl, after all?" irrelevantly.
"I wouldn't marry any other kind, and there is only one of them that I
would marry."
They did not speak again for a half-minute, but what they said was
relevant.
But the best of times must come to an end, even if it is merely to give
way to another good time, and Harley could not remain long at the
candidate's house, but strolled with Blaisdell and two or three others
through the city. He, too, had a sense of helplessness in regard to the
campaign. Like Jimmy Grayson, he was now condemned to a period of
inaction, and, strive as he might, he could not aid his friend a
particle. They went to the local headquarters of the party--two parlors
of the largest hotel in the city.
The rooms, which had been thrown together, were packed with men and
thick with tobacco-smoke, making the air heavy and hot. News there was
none, but clouds of rumor and gossip. The telegraph said bad weather,
cold and raw, with gusts of rain, prevailed all over the United States,
but that an enormous vote was being polled, nevertheless. In all the
booths in all the great cities long lines of people were waiting, and
reports of the same character were coming from the country districts.
But with the secret ballot there was nothing whatever to indicate which
way this vote was being cast, nor would there be until the polls were
closed and the official count was begun. It was said that in many of the
precincts of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia more than half the vote
was cast already, so eager were both sides for victory. These bulletins,
more or less vague as they came from time to time, were posted on a
blackboard, and their vagueness did not keep them from arousing the
keenest interest.
Dexter, the chairman of the state committee, a thin-faced man who talked
little, shook his head ominously.
"I don't like the enormous vote they are polling so early in the big
cities," he said. "It shows that the band of traitors led by Goodnight,
Crayon, and their kind are getting in their work."
"But we don't know it to be a fact," said Harley, resolved that the
cloud should have its silver lining. "For every man in that crowd eager
to cast a vote against Jimmy Grayson, there may be one eager to cast a
vote for him."
Dexter shook his head again, and with increased gloom. Harley's argument
might appeal to his hopes, but not to his judgment.
"I'm sorry that Jimmy Grayson made his attack upon that committee," he
said. "It spoke well for his courage and honesty, but it was bad
politics."
"I think that courage and honesty are good politics," said Harley, and
he left Dexter to his pessimistic thoughts.
The rooms were growing too close, and there was an absence of definite
news, so he went again into the open air. The character of the day was
unchanged; it was still dark with ominous clouds trooping across the
sky, and the wind had grown more bitter.
Harley now found himself under the strain of an extreme anxiety. He did
not realize until this day how deeply his own feelings were interwoven
with the fate of the campaign, and how bleak the night would look to him
and Sylvia if Mr. Grayson were beaten--and he knew that the odds were
against him; despite himself, he, a man of calm mind and strong will,
was a prey to nerves. He began to shrink at the thought of the count of
the votes, and to fear the first real bulletins.
He walked about the streets awhile to steady himself, and then looked at
his watch. It was past noon there, but later in the East and earlier in
the West; yet the bulk of the ballots were cast already. In three or
four hours more the tabulated vote in the states farthest east would
begin to arrive, and they would listen to the opening chapter of the
story, a story which he feared to hear.
Absorbed in his thoughts, he had strolled unconsciously towards the
country. There, at a turn of the road, he met two people in a light
wagon, and they were the candidate and his wife Mrs. Grayson driving.
Harley looked up in surprise at their calm, cheerful faces. How could
they assume such an air with the combat at its height?
"I'm sorry you and Sylvia were not with us," said Mr. Grayson; "Mrs.
Grayson has been taking me to see the changes in the country since I
went campaigning. There are a half-dozen new residences in the suburb
out yonder, and they've built a new foot-bridge, too, over the river.
Oh, our city is looking up!"
They drove on cheerfully, and Harley went back to town. All the
arrangements for the night were made; the two great telegraph companies
would handle their despatches in equal proportion, and would send
bulletins of the count, as fast as they came, to the candidate.
Headquarters would do the same, and there would be no lack of news.
Harley rejoined his comrades at the hotel, but stayed with them only a
little while, because he, of course, was to dine with Sylvia and the
Graysons. All the others had been invited, but they did not wish to
overwhelm the candidate on this day of all days, and none except "King"
Plummer would go.
"Lucky fellow," said Hobart, as Harley walked away.
"But not luckier than he deserves," said Blaisdell.
After dinner Hobart looked at his watch, then shut it, and with a quick
motion thrust it into his pocket.
"The polls have closed in three-fourths of the states," he said, "and
probably somebody is elected. I wonder who it is?"
Nobody replied, but on their way to Jimmy Grayson's house they passed
through the party headquarters. The rooms were so crowded that they
could scarcely move, but they managed to approach the blackboard, and
they saw written upon it:
"Goodnight, Crayon, and others claim decisive defeat of Grayson. Assert
that he will not get one-third the vote of the electoral college."
"What nonsense!" exclaimed Hobart, who felt a thrill of anger. "Why,
they have not begun the count of the vote anywhere!"
They left the rooms and went into the street. The November twilight was
coming earlier than ever under the shadow of the thickening clouds, and
already lights were beginning to shine from many windows. Uniformed
messenger-boys were passing.
"The wires will soon be talking," said Churchill.
The candidate's house was not inferior to any in the number of its
lights. In the cold, dark twilight it reared a cheerful front, and the
candidate himself, when he received them, was steady and calm.
"Some of our friends are here already," he said, and he had them shown
into the large room, where the tables for their use had been placed.
It was brilliantly illuminated, and a dozen men were sitting about
speculating on the events of the day and hoping for a happy result.
Among them was old Senator Curtis, who had come all the way from
Wyoming, and he was loudly declaring that if Mr. Grayson were not
elected he would never take any interest in another Presidential
election. The others made no comment on his declaration.
Harley came in late. At dinner with the Graysons he had been thinking,
when he looked at Sylvia's lovely face across the table, that it would
always be just across the table from him now, and the thought was such a
happy one that it clung to him.
The correspondents disposed themselves about the room, and placed pencil
and paper on the tables; yet there would be nothing for them to write
for a long time. They were only to tell the story of how the candidate
took it, after the story itself was told. Their business was with either
a paean or a dirge.
Harley looked around at the group, all of whom he knew.
"Have you fellows thought that this is our last meeting?" he asked.
There was a sudden silence in the room. All seemed to feel the solemnity
of the moment. Out in the street some happy men, who had helped to empty
the bowl, were singing a campaign song, and its sound came faintly to
the group.
"A wager to you boys that none of you can name the state from which the
first completed return will come. What odds will you give?" said "King"
Plummer, who was resolutely seeking to be cheerful.
"We won't take your wager because we'd win, sure," said Hobart. "It will
be a precinct in New York City, up-town. They get through quick there;
they never fail to be first."
"Whatever the vote there is, I am going to look upon it as an omen,"
said Mr. Heathcote. "If our majority is reduced it will mean a bad
start, good ending; if our majority is increased, it will mean that a
good beginning is half the battle."
Dexter, the chairman of the state campaign committee, entered, his thin
face still shadowed by gloomy thoughts.
"We've had a few bulletins at headquarters, but nothing definite," he
said. "All the reports so far are from the East, of course, owing to the
difference in time, but I'd like mighty well to know what they are doing
out there on the Slope and in the Rockies."
"We'll know in good time, Charlie; just you wait," said Jimmy Grayson,
who was the calmest man in the room.
"I've done enough waiting already to last me the rest of my life," said
Dexter, moodily.
The door was opened softly, and four or five pairs of young eyes peeped
shyly into the room. The candidate, with assurances that there was
nothing to be told, gently pushed the youthful figures away and closed
the door again.
"I would put them to bed," he said, apologetically, "but they can't
sleep, and it is not any use for them to try; so they are supposed to be
shepherded in another part of the house by a nurse, but they seem to
break the bounds now and then."
"I claim the privilege of carrying them the good news when we get it, if
they are still awake," said Harley.
A messenger-boy entered with a despatch, but it contained no
information, merely an assurance from a devoted New England adherent
that he believed Jimmy Grayson was elected, as he felt it in his bones.
"Why does a man waste time and money in telegraphing us a thing like
that?" said Dexter. "It isn't worth anything."
But Harley was not so sure. He believed with Jimmy Grayson that good
wishes had more than a sentimental value. He went to the window and
gazed into the street. The number of people singing campaign songs as
they waited for the news was increasing, and the echoes of much laughter
and talk floated towards the house. Farther down the street they were
throwing flash-lights on white canvas in front of a great crowd, but so
far the bulletins were only humorous quotations or patent-medicine
advertisements, each to be saluted at the beginning with a cheer and at
the end with a groan. He turned back to the table just as another boy
bearing a despatch entered the room.
Mr. Dexter had constituted himself the clerk of the evening--that is, he
was to sit at the centre-table and read the despatches as they came. He
took the yellow envelope from the boy, tore it open, and paused a
moment. Then all knew by the change upon his face that the first news
had come. Dexter turned to Hobart.
"You were right," he said, "it is from New York City, up-town. The
Thirty-first Assembly District in the City of New York gives a majority
of 824 for Grayson. This is official."
At another table sat a man with a book containing the complete vote of
all the election districts in every state of the Union at the preceding
Presidential election. All looked inquiringly at him, and he instantly
made the comparison.
"We carried the Thirty-first Assembly District of the City of New York
by 1077 four years ago," he said. "Our majority suffers a net loss of
253."
"Did I not tell you?" exclaimed Heathcote. "A bad start makes a good
ending."
"It's a happy sign," said Sylvia, with her usual resolute hopefulness.
But, despite themselves, a gloom settled upon all; the first report from
the battle was ominous--such a loss continued would throw the election
heavily in favor of the other man--and after her remark they were
silent.
Mrs. Grayson looked into the room, but they told her there was nothing,
and, whether she believed them or not, she closed the door again without
further question.
"Here comes another boy," said Hobart, who was at the window, watching
the crowd before the transparency.
"Now this is good news, sure," said "King" Plummer.
It was from another assembly district in New York City, and the party
majority was cut down again, but this time the reduction was only 62
votes.
"That's better," said Mr. Heathcote.
"It will have to be a great deal better to elect our man," whispered
Hobart to Harley.
Harley went to the window again, and looked down the street towards the
transparency, where the opposition voters were cheering wildly at the
first news so favorable to their side. Despite himself, Harley felt an
unreasoning anger towards them. "You cheer about nothing," he said to
himself. "This is only a few thousand votes among millions." Then he was
ashamed of his feeling, and left the window.
"The Hub speaks!" exclaimed Mr. Dexter, as he tore open another
envelope. Then he announced a vote from one of the wards of Boston.
"And it speaks right," said the man with the book. "Mr. Grayson cuts
down the majority polled against us there four years ago by 433 votes."
A little cheer was raised in the room, and down the street at the
transparency there was a cheer, too, but the voices were not the same as
those that cheered a few moments ago.
"Good old Boston," said Hobart, "and we made that gain right where the
enemy thought he was strongest!"
The first gain of the evening had a hopeful effect upon all, and they
spoke cheerfully.
But a vote from Providence, a minute later went the other way, and it
was followed by one of a similar nature from New Haven. The gloom
returned. Their minds fluctuated with the bulletins.
"It was too good to last," whispered Hobart, downcast.
The children again appeared at the door and wanted to know if their
father was elected. Sylvia took upon herself the task of assuring them
that he was not yet elected, but he certainly would be before many
hours. Then they went away sanguine and satisfied, and trying to keep
sleepy eyelids from closing. In the street the noise was increasing as
the crowd received facts, and the cheers were loud and various. But
those of the enemy predominated, and Harley thrilled more than once with
silent anger. A half-dozen men passed the house singing a song in
derision of Jimmy Grayson; some of the words came to them through the
window, and Sylvia flushed, but Mr. Grayson himself showed no sign that
he understood.
The telegrams now were arriving fast; there were two streams of boys,
one coming in at the door and the other going out, and Mr. Dexter, at
the table, settled to his work. For a while the chief sounds in the room
were the tearing of paper, the rustling of unfolded despatches, and the
dry voice of the chairman announcing results. These votes were all from
Eastern cities, where the polls closed early and the ballots could be
counted quickly. Over the West and the Far West darkness still brooded,
and the country districts everywhere were silent.
Yet Harley knew that throughout the United States the utmost activity
prevailed. To him the night was wonderful; in a day of perfect peace
nearly twenty million votes had been cast, and the most powerful ruler
in the world had been made by the free choice of the nation, just as
four years or eight years hence another ruler would be made in his place
by the same free choice, the old giving way to the new. Now to-night
they were trying to find out who this ruler was, and no one yet could
tell.
But the tale would be told in a few hours. Harley knew that over an area
of three million square miles, as large as the ancient civilized world,
men were at work counting, down to the last remote mountain hamlet, and
putting the result on the wires as they counted it. And ninety million
people waited, ready to abide by the result, whether it was their man or
the other. To him there was something extraordinary in this organized,
this peaceful but tremendous activity. To-night all the efforts of the
world's most energetic nation were bent upon a single point. In each
state the wires talked from every town and village to a common centre,
and each state in turn, through its metropolis, talked to the common
centre of them all, and the general result of all they said would be
known to everybody before morning. It seemed marvellous to him, although
he understood it perfectly, that a few hours after the boxes were opened
the votes should be counted and accredited to the proper man.
He resumed his seat at a table, although there was yet but little for
him to write, and listened to the dry, monotonous voice of Dexter as he
called the vote. The results were still of a variable nature, gains here
and losses there, but on the whole the losses were the larger, and the
atmosphere of the room grew more discouraging. The great state of New
York, upon which they had relied, was showing every sign that it would
not justify their faith. The returns from the city of New York, from
Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, were all bad, and the most resolute hopes
could not make them otherwise.
"'As goes New York, so goes the Union,'" whispered Hobart, quoting an
old proverb.
"Maybe that rule will be broken at last," replied Harley, hopefully.
But even Sylvia looked gloomy. There was one thought, as these returns
came, in the minds of them all. It was that the members of the
Philipsburg Committee had made good their threat; their defection had
drawn from Grayson thousands of votes in a pivotal state, and if he had
ever had a chance of election this took it from him. Yet no one uttered
a word of reproach for Jimmy Grayson, although Harley knew that those
who called themselves practical politicians were silently upbraiding
him. He feared that they might consider their early warnings justified,
and he resented it.
A discordant note, too, was sounded by the South; Alabama, a state that
they considered sure, although by a small majority, would go for the
other man if the returns continued of the same tone. The only ray of
light came from New England, whence it had not been expected. The large
cities there were showing slight increases for Jimmy Grayson.
"Who would have thought it?" said Mr. Heathcote.
But it seemed too small to have any effect, and they turned their minds
to other parts of the country that seemed to be more promising ground.
The voice of Mr. Dexter, growing hoarse from incessant use and wholly
without expression, read a bulletin from New York:
"Great crowd in front of the residence of the Honorable Mr. Goodnight,
on upper Fifth Avenue, and he is speaking to them from the steps. Says
the election of their man is assured. Derides Mr. Grayson; says no man
can betray predominant interests and succeed. Crowd hooting the name of
Grayson."
"The traitor!" exclaimed Hobart.
But Jimmy Grayson said nothing. Harley watched him closely, and he knew
now that the candidate's expressionless face was but a mask--it was only
human that he should feel deep emotion. Harley saw his lips quiver
faintly now and then, and once or twice his eyes flashed. Down the
street, in front of the transparency, there was a tremendous noise, the
people had divided according to their predilections and were singing
rival campaign songs, but there was no disorder.
Waiters came in bearing refreshments, and during a lull in the bulletins
they ate and drank. Mrs. Grayson also joined them for a little while.
She said nothing about the news, and Harley inferred from her silence
on the point that she knew it to be discouraging. But he saw her give
her husband a glance of pride and devotion that said as plain as print,
"Even if you are beaten, you are the man who should have been elected."
She reported that the younger of the children had dropped off to sleep,
but the others were still eager.
Again some men passing the house raised a cry in derision of Jimmy
Grayson, and Mrs. Grayson's face flushed. The others did not know what
to do; they could not go out and rebuke the deriders, as that would only
make a bad matter worse, but the men soon passed on. Mrs. Grayson stayed
only a little while in the room, retiring on the plea of domestic
duties. Jimmy Grayson, too, went out to see his children, he said, but
Harley thought that man and wife wished to talk over the prospect.
The news, after the lull, began to come faster than ever. The West spoke
at last, and its first words came through Denver and Salt Lake, but its
voice was non-committal. There was nothing in it to indicate how
Colorado and Utah, both doubtful states, would go. But presently, when
Mr. Dexter broke an envelope and opened a bulletin, he laughed.
"Boys," he said, "here's faith for you: the precinct of Waterville, in
Wyoming casts every one of her votes for Grayson."
They cheered. Certainly the people who had heard Mr. Grayson's decisive
speech were loyal to him, and they should have honor despite their
fewness. But immediately behind it came a bulletin that gave them the
heaviest blow they had yet received.
"Complete returns from more than three-fourths of the precincts in the
state," read Mr. Dexter, "show beyond doubt that New Jersey has gone at
least 20,000 against Grayson."
"I never did think much of New Jersey, anyhow," said Hobart, sourly.
They laughed, but there was no mirth in the laugh. Tears rose in
Sylvia's eyes. Ten minutes later, Alabama had wheeled into line with New
Jersey it was certainly against Grayson and the news from New York was
growing worse. Harley, in his heart, knew that there was no hope of the
state, although he tried to draw encouragement from scattered votes here
and there. From the Middle West the news was mixed, but its general
tenor was not favorable. But New England was still behaving well.
"Our vote in Massachusetts surprises me," said Mr. Heathcote; "we shall
more than cut their majority in half. We shall carry Boston and
Worcester, and we are even making gains in the country districts."
"Almost complete returns from Michigan and Wisconsin show that the
former has gone for Grayson by a substantial majority, and the latter
against him by a majority about the same," read Mr. Dexter.
"Which shows that Michigan is much the finer state of the two," said
Hobart.
"One state at least is secure," said Harley.